When the waiter arrived with the drinks he explained that the pharmacy was closed so he could not purchase a thermometer. Fitzgerald then asked Hemingway if he had explained to the waiter the urgency of the situation and had he tipped the waiter enough because waiters, especially French waiters, only worked for tips, and big tips because they were all rotten.

Hemingway said he had and knew that Fitzgerald had no understanding of waiters, or anyone else who had to work for a living, and wanted to tell him about how a waiter at the Closerie des Lilas had to cut his moustache off when that restaurant opened an American Bar, and that he would have been sacked had he not done so; and how the waiters had become firm friends of Hemingway, and his friend Evan Shipman, and how those waiters had loaned Hemingway money in the early days, money they could not afford to leand, and that you didn’t abuse waiters, or taxi drivers as Fitzgerald did. Hemingway realised that Fitzgerald was a dreadful snob and a pain in the arse, which is where he wanted to stick the thermometer if he could get one.

As Hemingway read his newspaper Fitzgerald turned on him, as Hemingway recalled in A Moveable Feast:

” You’re a cold one, aren’t you?”

” What do you mean, Scott?”

” You can sit there and read that dirty French rag of a paper and it doesn’t mean a thing to you that I am dying.”

” Do you want me to call a doctor?”

” No. I don’t want a dirty French provincial doctor.”

” What do you want?”

” I want my temperature taken. Then I want my clothes dried and for us to get on an express train for Paris and to go to the American hospital at Neuilly.”

” Our clothes won’t be dry yet, and there aren’t any express trains…”

With that there was a knock on the door. The waiter had returned with a thermometer – a large bath thermometer with a wooden back and, as Hemingway describes it, “…enough metal to sink it in the bath.”

Hemingway shook the thermometer down “professionally”. Fitzgerald then asked where that kind of thermometer went. Hemingway hesitated and then said that it went under the arm and put it under his own arm. Fitzgerald told him to remove it as it might affect his own reading. Hemingway then shook it down again and put it under Fitzgerald’s arm where he left it for four minutes.

” Aren’t you supposed to leave for just one minute?”

” No,” replied Hemingway, explaining that it was a big thermometer and that you had to multiply by four, hoping Fitzgerald would believe him.

” Oh. So what’s the reading?”

” Thirty-seven and six-tenths.”

” Is that normal?”

” Yes.”

” Are you sure?”

” Sure.”

Fitzgerald insisted Hemingway try it on himself, which he did with the same result. Fitzgerald asked Hemingway how he felt. Fine, said Hemingway. Well, we can be happy it cleared up so quickly, replied Fitzgerald, reminding Hemingway that he’d always had excellent recuperative powers. He then insisted on phoning Zelda.

After that Fitzgerald brightened and told Hemingway how he’d met Zelda and that this was their first night of separation since they had married, which Hemingway did not believe.

When their clothes were dry and pressed they both went down for dinner with Fitzgerald talking all the while about his novels and where the plots had come from, and he kept on talking the following day as they drove to Paris in beautiful sunshine.

When they finally reached Paris Fitzgerald gave Hemingway the manuscript of his new book to read, which Hemingway loved and knew that no matter how badly Scott behaved, which was really a sickness, that Hemingway must always try and be a good friend.